Having a nice gesture

Every time we start a conversation, there are many factors other than the words that also play a very important role in the communication. Syntax, grammar, lexicon, intonation, articulation, timing, accent, volume and pitch are just a few of the purely verbal aspects of speech. But situational context, body language and gesturing are also an intrinsic part of human speech. And while some gesture are essentially innate (frowning in pain or concentration is essentially universal) their intensity is greatly influence by the culture, like the furious hand movements of the Italians, and other are unique to a geographic region or a group of cultures, like the head bobble in South Asia.

The social origin of gesturing was established a long time ago, and indeed it has been described that people who are born blind also gesture like sighted people, but they have a hard time modulating the facial expressions and other gestures because they do not have an easy way to compare their own with everyone around them (essentially, they cannot see themselves in the mirror) essentially in the same way that a deaf person can produce some sounds but needs years of training to produce the right ones to be understood.

Photo: PIXNIO

One remarkable example of this social component comes from my years of university. During my junior year, a fellow student from my dorm came to one day and said: "I have met this guy in class that definitely has to be a brother of yours, because he talks and gesticulates exactly the same way you do!" My fellow student had not met my brother Jack before, and neither did he know that he was also attending the same university because he was staying out of the campus, but when they accidentally met the similarities were so salient that they left no doubt, almost like a fingerprint. Of course, when I mentioned this to Jack he was absolutely skeptic: "I do not know what you are talking about. We have absolutely nothing in common when it comes to talking or gesturing", but he was wrong. Watching him giving a talk to his employees I repeatedly identify hand movements and facial expressions that could undoubtedly be my own.

The expression "The eyes are the mirrors of the soul" dates back to the Gospel of Matthew (58-68 CE) and even before that Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) stated that "The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreters", so it is undisputed the weight of the eyes as means of expression. However, now that due to the COVID-19 pandemic the use of face masks has become widespread (and even mandatory) in many western countries we have started to realize that the eyes do not carry this load alone. Ann Wroe wrote a few days ago a beautiful article for the magazine 1843 explaining how smiles have become an essential part of life in many parts of the world, to the point that one feels somehow orphan if the train conductor does not smile when asking for the ticket or if the lady behind the counter at the bakery limits herself to a blank expression when taking your order. I am as much addicted to that habit as anybody else, and even used to go "smile hunting" when it was still legal to take a walk in town.

Hopefully the COVID-19 crisis will go away in a year or two and we will be able to dig among the ashes and return to the portions of the old normality that are still usable, while potentially retaining some of the gains attributable to this unusual situation and filling the gaps with ingenuity, but there is the question of what will happen with the face masks in the future: will they stay and force us to develop alternative expressive resources that do not count of the smile to convey our feelings? Will the face expressions be limited to the family environment, while public conversations require other gestures?

This question reminds me of the book "Leviathan Wakes", which I finished reading a couple of weeks ago, where humankind has spread throughout the Solar System and colonized, among other areas, the asteroid belt. Over a few generations the "belters" have grown tall and thin due to the low gravity environment where they have lived, mining the resources of the asteroids, and they have developed more expressive gestures that can be understood even while wearing a space suit, because shrugging your shoulders the usual way would be barely noticeable under those circumstances.

I am pretty sure that we will eventually find a way to restore the past level of expression one way or the other. I was pretty happy with the way it was, so I would not mind going back, but I am not at all against innovating, although it might catch me already with a certain age and perhaps not anymore with the dexterity and the enthusiasm that I used to have. In the meantime, please consider smiling to those within your reach, because it is a nice gesture that can be sorely missed. Have a nice week